Sam Brown
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samuscript.bsky.social
Sam Brown
@samuscript.bsky.social
PhDing at UCL on Arabic in England pre-1635. Northerner. Sometime documentary producer. Human 🦜 perch.

www.lifeandotherstories.co.uk
Pinned
If there's anything more exciting than seeing a book you work on in an exhibition, it's surely being invited to talk about it. Very excited for this event next month!

📷 Lancelot Browne's annotated copy of Avicenna in Arabic at the @rcpmuseum.bsky.social exhibition, 'A body of knowledge'.
Reposted by Sam Brown
📣 Librarian and library-loving friends! On Tuesday at 7pm GMT there’s a free online Q&A with Kim Snyder, director of ‘The Librarians’. For more details and to book visit www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/q-and-a-wi.... It’s being run by a UK documentary group but all are welcome!
Q and A with Kim Snyder, Director of "The Librarians"
We Are Doc Women Presents an online Q&A with the director of "The Librarians", Kim Snyder.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
November 5, 2025 at 8:42 PM
📣 Librarian and library-loving friends! On Tuesday at 7pm GMT there’s a free online Q&A with Kim Snyder, director of ‘The Librarians’. For more details and to book visit www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/q-and-a-wi.... It’s being run by a UK documentary group but all are welcome!
Q and A with Kim Snyder, Director of "The Librarians"
We Are Doc Women Presents an online Q&A with the director of "The Librarians", Kim Snyder.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
November 5, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Reposted by Sam Brown
We are delighted to announce a virtual winter lectures for exhibition 'A body of knowledge' is open to book 👉 history.rcp.ac.uk/event/body-k...

🗓️ 6pm GMT, 9 Dec, £5
😍 Featuring a virtual exhibition tour & fascinating lectures from @awickenden.bsky.social & @samuscript.bsky.social!

#LibraryHistory
November 4, 2025 at 3:19 PM
If there's anything more exciting than seeing a book you work on in an exhibition, it's surely being invited to talk about it. Very excited for this event next month!

📷 Lancelot Browne's annotated copy of Avicenna in Arabic at the @rcpmuseum.bsky.social exhibition, 'A body of knowledge'.
November 4, 2025 at 12:12 PM
I'm thrilled to be teaching a short course on Arabic Studies in Early Modern England with Prof. Alastair Hamilton at @warburginstitute.bsky.social next month. We'll need to meet a minimum number of bookings to run, so if you're interested, sign up asap! warburg.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...
Crossing the world without an interpreter: Arabic studies in England 1550-1640
warburg.sas.ac.uk
October 17, 2025 at 3:41 PM
And day 2 of #BuiltWithBooks was also a joy (so much so that I’ve spent most of today recovering from the excitement!). Thank you to all our speakers and attendees for making it a huge success - cake and merch for the win, but nothing beats a room full of interesting, generous book historians.
September 11, 2025 at 5:11 PM
And what an EXCELLENT paper it was - so excited to play with the tools and pester you with questions about using all the data (apologies in advance…)
Day two of the Built With Books conference @livesandletters.bsky.social ! My paper this afternoon will be for demonstrating how the EBDO and CEBEME datasets can be used to find old and second-hand books in early modern England
September 10, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Such a fantastic first day at our @livesandletters.bsky.social Built with Books symposium. Heading home to finish my paper (😅) full of ideas and excited for day two. #BuiltWithBooks #EarlyModern #BookHistory
September 9, 2025 at 7:04 PM
Reposted by Sam Brown
apparently my book comes out in September, wow, preorder it for all your library and intellectual history needs, stay for the section on Paradise Lost and John Ray's herbals, or the story of George Psalmanazar, my favourite early modern scammer www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...
Hans Sloane's Library Collection and the Production of Knowledge | Cambridge University Press & Assessment
www.cambridge.org
August 27, 2025 at 12:26 PM
📣 Exciting Bedwell news 📣 I’m thrilled to have assisted with a new exhibition at Bruce Castle Museum, ‘Getting the Measure of William Bedwell: Maths, Measurement and the Arabic World’. Top tip: pair your visit with a walk around the corner to see his church for full WB/early modern Tottenham vibes.
August 20, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Sam Brown
hello. if you work at a university please ask your library to buy my book. it is all about books and libraries and also plants, museums, the Royal Society, and the ways we learn. I think it will be interesting to lots of people, hopefully. thank you www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...
Hans Sloane's Library Collection and the Production of Knowledge | Cambridge University Press & Assessment
www.cambridge.org
June 30, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Sorry, kids. Prepare to be SHOCKED and OFFENDED by the scarcity of Arabic books in sixteenth-century England.
Sorry, kids. Prepare to be SHOCKED and OFFENDED by the high levels of rural proletarianization in seventeenth-century England.
June 19, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Can anyone with much better Arabic palaeography skills than me transcribe this? It is the end of a note written by a Moroccan in a European album amicorum. I’m trying to work out if the name we have for the person who wrote it comes from the inscription itself or another source, but struggling…
June 19, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Reposted by Sam Brown
Bullying, long hours and no jobs: Inside the TV industry's mental health crisis - with over 50% of the tv industy out of work, how are the government planning on supporting it? inews.co.uk/culture/tele...
Bullying, long hours and no jobs: Inside the TV industry's mental health crisis
A recent survey found one in three people working in the British film and TV industry rate their mental health as 'poor' or 'very poor' - and it's getting worse
inews.co.uk
May 16, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Sam Brown
(you have to be sixteen or older to use the Library of Congress' reading rooms)
Reporter: The president fired the Librarian of Congress. Why? 

Leavitt: There were quite concerning things she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.
May 9, 2025 at 7:35 PM
My conference tattoo may be fading, but the research, conversations and unadulterated geekery of FEATHERS’ Scribes and Inky Fingerprints will be with me for quite some time. If you weren’t here I’m afraid you really did miss out…
May 9, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Reposted by Sam Brown
In two weeks' time! Join us in the evening of 19 May for an exciting conversation about 'changing the record: how people use(d) paperwork to make their world.

Free tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/changing-t...

#YayArchives #SkyStorians #HistArchives
May 5, 2025 at 6:50 PM
If someone would like to pay me to move to Leiden that would be delightful, thank you
May 5, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Very excited to be en route to Leiden to talk about Arabic correspondence in England (obviously feat. William Bedwell) at the FEATHERS conference. Less excited at being stationary on the tarmac at Stansted for longer than the journey will take…
May 5, 2025 at 11:33 AM
Come and join us at @livesandletters.bsky.social to talk about #EarlyModern libraries! Two weeks to get your abstracts in! Check the website for full details, incl. how PhDs and ECRs can apply for funding to attend…
CfP ‘Built with books: shaping the shelves of the early modern library’
Submit by 16th May
This 2-day symposium (9-10 Sept at UCL) will explore the rich field of early modern library studies, inviting fresh, interdisciplinary perspectives and methodologies.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
May 2, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Every Richard Field binding now a possible Shakespeare household archive? Yes please!
April 23, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Reposted by Sam Brown
It’s me! I’m the expert! Had lots of fun writing this piece on The White Lotus and Shakespeare. Please read and share!

#Shakespeare #TheWhiteLotus
April 10, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Sam Brown
“At this point, many librarians have done every single thing they can to save things.”
For @us.theguardian.com, I interviewed librarians about the impact of Trump’s administration, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services being gutted, experiences at work, & the incredible importance of library resources, programming, and support: “We get everyone at the library.”
Being a librarian was already hard. Then came the Trump administration
Already facing burnout and book bans, librarians face a ‘catastrophe’ for institutions deemed central to democracy
www.theguardian.com
April 7, 2025 at 5:22 PM